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officially under direct papal authority.21 Robert Figueira has argued that in
practice, the authority to absolve such excommunications was so frequently
delegated to papal legates in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries
that their right to absolve this type of excommunication was accepted as a
custom by canonists such as Bernard of Parma and Hostiensis.22
In the remainder of this article I will demonstrate how Icelandic bish-
ops engaged with the canon Si quis suadente and incorporated it into their
understanding of how to minister to and discipline their flocks, as well
as how they understood their own authority within the legal system. No
Icelandic bishops were papal legates, but they nevertheless took responsi-
bility for regulating ipso facto excommunications. What stands out about
evidence from Iceland is not the tendency for bishops to default to local
solutions in cases of violence against clerics rather than the pope – this was
common23 – but rather the nature of these local solutions, which, as far as
the evidence will allow us to see, involved bishops positioning themselves
as interpreters of guðs lög “God’s laws,” which in this context refers to
canon law works such as the Decretum and the Liber extra but also com-
mentaries like those by Goffredus of Trano or Raymond of Penyafort.
The Reach of Canon Law:
Sources and their Dissemination in Ice land
Despite the geographic distance between the papal curia in Rome (or
Avignon) and the schools of canon law in Bologna and Iceland, Si quis
suadente and other developments in canon law were quick to reach the
province of Niðaróss, of which Iceland was a part (from its founding in
1152/1153). The Archbishops of Niðaróss corresponded with the pope,
and archbishop Jón rauði attended the Second Council of Lyon in 1274.24
Icelandic bishops visited Norway regularly and, especially in the fourteenth
21 Figueira, “Papal Reserved Powers,” 191–211.
22 Figueira, “Papal Reserved Powers,” 193. See also Helmholz, “English Ecclesiastical Tri-
bunals,” 23.
23 Richard Helmholz, for example, found that only two of ca. 150 cases invoking Si quis
suadente that he examined from English court books mentioned recourse to the pope, “Si
quis suadente,” 435. Helmholz, “English Ecclesiastical Tribunals,” 23–27.
24 “Annales regii,” Islandske Annaler indtil 1578, edited by Gustav Storm (Christiania:
Grøndahl, 1888 [reprinted Oslo: 1977]), 139.
THE CANON SI QUIS SUADENTE